Death and Destiny
by artanimelover
Summary: I've seen dead people since I was little. Unfortunately for me, that very same gift is about to take me on a journey I've never expected... And all because I decided to help a ghost stuck to a tree. Review.
1. Chapter 1

**Death and Destiny**

* * *

><p>"I see dead people." It's something that I don't necessarily find myself saying very often, but also something I'm not ashamed to admit.<p>

These kind of conversations, though, can only go one of two ways. Either one's conversation partner can accept the fact that one can see the dead, or they accuse one of being crazy, of hallucinating.

Unfortunately, if the laughter coming from Detective Maysayoshi and the strange look Detective Osamu sent my way were any indication, things had not changed.

"I'll ask you again, Ms. Higurashi, How did you know about Naraku Watanabe?" Detective Osamu asked in a no-nonsense voice.

I sighed. Was it just me, or did the official officers in Kyoto love the sound of their own voice? We'd been through this before, folks. Nothings going to change just because you ask the same question nine times over again. "And I'll tell you again, Detective, I. See. Dead. People."

Detective Osamu took an aggravated sip of his Coffey, a clear sign that his patients were slipping, and he was trying to hold his temper. Unfortunately for him, I could see the falseness in the move. He was about as moved to anger as you get when you can't find a matching shirt to go with your brown belt and deck shoes.

"And these... dead people," Said Detective Maysayoshi, a chuckle slipping past his hold, " They what? Led you to him? Told you about the bomb he was planting in the hotel?"

I thought for a moment. "In more or less words, he did."

"He?" That seemed to capture Osamu's attention. "There was a he?" Detective Osamu glared at the pile of papers in front of him. "I didn't know there was a he. Why didn't we know there was a he?"

Rolling my eyes, I frowned at the unprofessional detectives in front of me. "You wouldn't. He's dead."

Osamu seemed to snap and threw all the papers around the table. "There are no such fucking thing as spirits, girl! Get it through your hallucinatory brain and tell us what we want to hear!"

Maysayoshi quit his girlish giggling and held his partner at bay, "Osamu-san, calm down. We are professional detectives, and you need to act like it. If Ms. Higurashi wants to spout some crap about dead people, and a ghost guy who led her to Naraku's bomb, then we need to take it for the bull it is and be respectful about it."

Osamu sat down in a huff, and Maysayoshi turned to me. "Now, Ms. Higurashi, you should probably tell us what we want to hear before my partner here decides not to let me hold him back. When he's ready to rumble, he's ready to rumble, girl. Nobody can stop him."

I rolled my eyes again. "Oh, please. Detective, your partner is about as bad an actor as you are." With a sigh, I stretched the chains on my wrist as far as they would go and rested my elbows on the metal table of the interrogation room. "Look, Detectives. If you want me to tell you how some man in a black mask came up to me and told me a man named Naraku planted a bomb in Yaesu Fujia Hotel, I will. It'll be a lie, but hey, whatever makes the cranky detectives happy."

They seemed at a loss for words at that. Apparently the detectives in front of me weren't used to being told off by a sixteen year old girl.

Detective Maysayoshi seemed to recover first. "I think we've gotten off on the wrong foot. Ms. Higurashi, how about you just start at the beginning and we'll go from there?"

With a sigh, I sat back in the uncomfortable metal chair, slumping down and crossing my legs under the table. "Gladly."

And so I began.

* * *

><p>I was three when my parents first noticed just how different their baby girl was. What with imaginary friends who broke vases and picture frames within my toddler reach, drawing pictures of bloodied knives and decapitated bodies, who could blame the other children for staying away?<p>

After my fathers death when I turned six, and I told my mother how I could see dad, and how he wanted me to tell her how much he loved her, and that he was wrong for not believing me, my mom decided to put me through counseling. Counseling soon turned into therapy, though, and as soon as I deemed myself old enough, I stopped going. My mother would walk me in the building, and sign me in, and as soon as she left, I'd walk out the fire exit, only to return again when it was time to be picked up.

My charade didn't last long though, and mother found out. She signed me out of therapy for the last time that day.

When I entered my freshman year of high school, I had one friend, Sango Daiki. She was a tall, thin thing with an athletic build and a tough exterior to match. And she believed me when I told her what I could do.

Well, maybe believe isn't the right word. More like, she knew it was true when I found her younger brother, Kohaku scaring away everyone who wanted to go near her from his place beyond the grave.

She had died in a house fire the summer before my Sophomore year, and came to wish me good luck, and to tell me to tell her boyfriend, Miroku Fumio how much she loved to hit him when he groped other girls behind her back.

It was the second semester of the loneliest year of my life when he first came. I was eating lunch underneath the Goshinboku tree in my families shrine when I heard his growl above me.

I had to crain my neck to look at him, pinned by an arrow to the very same tree, covering the strange scar that had been on the sacred tree since before I was born.

"Who are you?" I asked the strange boy. He looked about my age, with the long silver, tangled hair that seemed it should belong to an elderly man, and not that of a seventeen year old boy. He had handsome features. A strong jaw, narrow lips, broad shoulders. But his most haunting feature seemed to be his eyes. Yellow like the sun... or maybe gold like fire?

He looked down at me and seemed startled. "Y-you can see me?"

I looked around the empty yard that led to the red shrine my family had dedicated themselves to taking care of since it was first built. "Well, there's nobody else around but you and I."

The boy seemed to frown. "Well it's no wonder you can see me, Kikyo. After all, you are the one who put me here."

"Kikyo?" I pointed to myself. "I'm not Kikyo. I've never even met anyone named Kikyo before in my life." I stood from my perch on the white picket fence surrounding the large sacred tree and held my hand out to the boy. "My names Kagome. Higurashi Kagome."

He glared down at me, something twitching above his head. A closer inspection told me they were what seemed to be dog ears. Like that of a dog, two silver triangles sat just before his bangs, twitching with every breath I took, almost as if he were listening.

"You sure look like her, though." His nose twitched, and his fingers curled in on themselves, forming two fists at his sides. "You don't smell like her, though." With a smirk set on his handsome face, he told me, "She smelled better."

I pursed my lips and glared at the ghost before me, my hands on my hips as I made my retort. "Yeah? Well at least I'm not dead!"

That made him frown. "I'm not dead."

That made me frown. "Yes you are. I've seen dead people my entire life, I think I'd know."

Reaching up, I touched the end of the arrow poking out of his chest, "It's obvious what killed you. B-but why haven't you moved on, I wonder?"

The boy frowned. "I aint dead, woman."

Ignoring the irritating boy, I grasped a hold of the end of the arrow, watching in wonder as it denigrated in my hand, freeing him and letting him slump to the ground by the tree.

He looked up at me in wonder. "Y-you can touch me?"

I nodded. "For some odd reason, I found when I was little that I can communicate with the dead just as effectively as I could communicate with the living. It's not as great as it sounds though." I touched the scar on the side of my throat, "Because when you can leave your mark on them, they can leave their mark on you."

The boy frowned, and then seemed to turn arrogant again. "Keh. What makes you so sure that I wont do the same?"

I pushed a piece of my black hair behind my ear. "You probably can. I've found a few ways to protect myself though, over the years. Not only that, but it's pretty darn hard to kill me."

The boy paused in his affronted agitation. "Someones tried to kill you?"

I nodded my head, "I've been pushed off the shrine roof, drowned in my friends back yard pool, thrown out my second story bedroom window." I looked at him. "It's not so easy to kill a Seer. You can go ahead and try if you want to, though."

That was the first of many conversations to come.

* * *

><p><strong>Did You Know: That this story was inspired by another of my stories that I'd yet to upload to fanfiction called Dead Girls Guide?<strong>

**Did You Know: That this story is dedicated to my friend who has begged me to call her AngeryRainbows. Don't ask why, she's strange like that.**

**Did You Know: That AngeryRainbows will be my co-author to this story?**


	2. Chapter 2

**Death and Destiny**

* * *

><p>The boy in the tree seemed to hold my interest, and I couldn't concentrate on much else except how he had gotten to be pinned to that tree... on my families shrine.<p>

My wanderings only went so far though, as when I asked the boy how he died, he never gave me a strait answer. The arrow that had stuck out of his shoulder when I found him was the only indication, save the fact that he's a ghost, that he was even dead in the first place.

Looking in the shrine's documents weren't any better help, either. They described a battle, some sort of magical gem and an age old priestess who was an archer master.

Not only did that set me off track, but there was the matter of my grades to attend to. My mother had gotten my report card in the mail, and was extremely disappointed in my lack of enthusiasm regarding my education. I had tried explaining to her that I was only a little side tracked right now, but I couldn't give her an answer when she asked by what.

With a huff I crossed my arms and stood there, staring pointedly at the cat that was lounging on our dining room table, listening to our conversation with bored ears. There was no way I could tell my mother that a ghost boy had been pinned to the goshinboku in our yard.

Mrs. Higurashi had an aversion to her daughters psychic abilities. She had a tendency to get on the deceive when I spoke of ghosts and spirits haunting the neighborhood.

"What on earth could be more important than your schooling, Kagome Higurashi?"

"Lots of things." I unfolded my arms and picked up the cap to my water bottle. We were in our tiny kitchen, me sitting on the counter and my mother leaning against the sink as we staired across the space at each other.

"Example, please?"

"My future? Our lives? The money we're not making right now?" Souta had had to stay back a grade because we couldn't afford to send him to middle school. Grandpa Jii-chan had renovate my fathers old study into a bedroom because we couldn't afford to send him to a home. My mother had no other job save what the shrine earns in tips and donations. Souta was too young, and Jii-chan too old to get one, so I had taken it upon myself to apply to the local book store down town. It wasn't much, but it was enough to put food on our table and cover most of Grandpa Jii's medical bills.

"Kagome Higurashi, you are too young to worry yourself with money." Mrs. Higurashi looked at her hands. "I suppose I'm not to great at hiding our troubles, am I?"

"No, your not."

I figured that after a moment of silence, our conversation was over, so I grabbed my water bottle and walked out this sliding glass door that led to our yard. Walking over to the Goshinboku, I set my water bottle and watched the strange scar that formed itself on the side. Taking a closer look, something caught my eye and I walked over the white picket fence surrounding it to get closer. I balanced myself on one of it's obtrusive roots and reached my hand as tall as it would go until my fingertips touched the center of it's scar, buried deep within the small hole in the center of the scar, was an object.

It was smooth and sharp, and when the sun caught it, it shined a rusted silver color, which is why it had caught my eye in the first place.

Taking it between my thumb and fore finger, I made quick work jerking the thing from side to side until it came loose in the palm of my hand, sending me tumbling back ward over the fence.

With a groan, I sat up and rubbed my sore rump from where I had fallen. Taking my feet back from where they had gotten hooked on the fence, I studied the object in my hand.

An arrows head.

* * *

><p>The boy from the tree sat leaning against the well house when I found him. I sat down beside the strange dog boy and held out the arrow head, figuring if I were going to get any answers about the thing, it'd be from him.<p>

But, no, it seemed he was going to make this hard as he just stared at it.

"Well?" I asked, getting irritated at his lack of emotion regarding the strange object.

"Well what?"

"Well what is it?" I was growing irate. And fast. It seemed the red clad boy with his silver hair and amber eyes knew just how to get under a girls skin. My skin.

"Keh. How should I know?"

"Gee, I don't know. I just happened to find it stuck in the very same tree you were hanging from when I found you. I just though, you know, maybe you'd be able to figure it out?"

He growled at my sarcasm. "It's an arrow head. Not much else to wonder about it."

"Oh, I can think of a few things. Like, for instance, where it came from. Or maybe, how it got in that tree."

The boy slumped down against the wall of the well house and bent his head forward so that, with his legs stretched out and his arms crossed, he looked to be asleep.

"Come on, tree boy, I know your not asleep. Give me something here. I'm trying to find out how to help you!"

"Ya ever think that maybe I don't need your help, girl?" He didn't lift his head, but I could still hear the growl in his voice.

"Oh, no kidding. You don't need my help at all, no. Because your not dead for unknown reasons, and you weren't pinned to our sacred tree, which, need I remind you, I got you down from?" Looking over at him, I waited to get an answer. And when I didn't, I continued. "You know what I think? I think this arrow head belongs to the arrow that cut you down when you died. Why anyone would pin you to a tree, a sacred tree, I've yet to find out."

The boy stood with another growl and tried to walk off, but I followed, right at his heel. "I also think that it must have happened hundreds of years ago. My family built this shrine around four generations ago. And they would have documented you if they'd found your remains on their tree."

"Go away, girl."

"My name's not girl, it's Kagome." I continued walking at his side. "So my guess is about five- six hundred years ago, maybe. We have some old documents from around that time, but their to old to be opened without tearing. Maybe I'll do some research on that priestess I read abou"– With a gesture that would have made any sailor now a days blush, he cut me off.

"You know what? Do whatever the heck you like. Just leave me alone. I never asked for your help." And with that, he bounded up to the Goshinboku and jumped into it's tallest branches, to high for me to see.

* * *

><p><strong>Did You Know: That the argument between Kagome and her mother and finding the arrow head were AngryRainbows ideas?<strong>

**Did You Know: That when I first uploaded this chapter, I mistakenly made Kagome call out to Tree-Boy using his real name? Unfortunately, I don't want her to know his name just yet, so I had to revise it, though you can all pretty much guess who he will be.**

**Did You Know: That AngryRainbows originally had Tree-Boy and Kagome get into a screaming argument that had Kagome's mom questioning her sanity? You can probably guess why I decided to change it/**


	3. Chapter 3

**Death and Destiny**

* * *

><p>"Fine, you idiot?" I yelled up at the tree, "Stay up there and rot for all I care?" I turned and sped back into the house, and up to my room. How was it that I was always so emotional around him? I wasn't one to get mad so easily, but around him, it was like I was a time bomb, just waiting to go off.<p>

"Stupid jerk." I muttered sitting on the floor and leaning against the bed. He was stuck to a tree when I found him, and if it weren't for me, he'd still be there. Why wouldn't he just help me help him?

I brought my knees to my chest and looked at my hands. "It's not like I'd need much, anyways. Maybe hear a little of his life? What killed him? That priestess lady. It's not so much."

Maybe it was only a sensitive subject for him, though. Maybe he didn't want to tell because something tragic happened.

I snapped my fingers. "Maybe he died protecting his special one?" But who would want to kill such a lady?

And who was Kikyo, anyways? "He called me by her name when we met. But he never once told me anything about her."

What was his name? "He'd never tell me that either."

I sighed and slumped onto my side. "Why can't he just trust me already and get it over with? The sooner he moves on, the better."

"Because, stupid, I told you I aint dead."

I turned my head to look at my window, where Tree-Boy sat on it's rim, glaring down at me.

"I thought you told me to get lost." I crossed my arms. "Your such a nuisance."

"Keh."

We were silent as the tension in the room gradually decreased to a normal degree. I studied his features. The strange silver hair was parted down the middle and pulled over his left shoulder. He had taken off the outer layer of his red Hakama to reveal the white under shirt. The dog ears that I so wanted to touch were positioned im my direction, but every now and again flickering another way to catch some unknown sound.

"So, then, you wont tell me your name?"

"Why should I?" He crossed his arms in a similar position to mine and slid down the wall to sit cross legged on the floor below the window. "It'd cause nothing but trouble."

"How do you figure."

"Your annoying, that's how."

"And your not?"

"Keh."

I frowned at him. Why did he have to be so cute, and so stubborn at the same time? Without really thinking about it, I crawled over to him and positioned myself in front of him, reaching up to touch his ears. His clawed hand gripped my wrists. "What do you think your doing?"

I pulled them out of his grasp and reached again, Tree-Boy tilted his head so that I only grasped air. "Sit still and I'll show you." I reached a third time, only to have my hands swatted away. After another couple tries, I gave up with a huff and gripped his forelocks, bringing his face close to mine angrily.

"Oi!" He shouted, "That hurts!"

His hands gripped my wrists again, trying to pry my fingers out of his hair.

"Will you just stop it already, Tree-Boy?" I growled. "Learn to trust me!"

"I don't know you!"

"Then give me a chance!"

"Why should I?"

I rested my forehead against his, my tight hold on his hair loosening some. I felt him stiffen in response to my action, and figured he was probably just to shocked to pull away, "Because I'm all you have."

I let loose his hair and reached around his head to his ears, his hands stayed on my wrists, but he didn't stop me, and after a moment, my fingers grazed the fuzzy, twitching appendixes. I giggled when they flicked under my touch. "See?" I asked, opening my eyes to look into his gold ones, our foreheads still touching. "Not as bad as you thought, huh?" I gripped the edge of his hear and rubbed it's base gently, feeling the tiny furs there shift under the tips of my fingers. I felt the rumble in his chest before I heard it, and I giggled, closing my eyes and listening to the strange purr.

Tree-Boy's hands tightened around my wrists only enough to make his hold dominant, and he brought my hands slowly away from his ears to rest in my lap.

I giggled again and kissed his forehead playfully before scooting back to my original spot.

The boy stood and made to leap out the window.

"Wait!" I called, watching as he paused but didn't look back. "What's your name?"

It was a moment before I heard it, and for a while I thought he wasn't going to respond, when he did, I had to strain my ears to hear it.

"Inuyasha."

* * *

><p><strong>Did You Know: That Inuyasha 'not being dead' was also the idea of AngryRainbows?<strong>

**Did You Know: that this chapter was inspired by All American Rejects' Brings You Hell, though it has nearly NOTHING in common?**

**Did You Know: That the nickname Tree-Boy was given by AngryRainbows during a fit of laughter as she watched Kagome break the arrow embedded in Inuyasha's chest in the actual anime show?  
><strong>


	4. Chapter 4

**Authors Notification::**

* * *

><p><strong>I'm so sorry for the long delay in updates... My computer crashed, as in, BOOM. Crash. I'm getting a new PC some time in the next month or so, so I'll update as SOON AS I CAN, alright. I'll update every single one of my stories when I have my new PC. So sorry, again. <strong>

**Thanks for staying loyal!**

**~Artanimelover**


	5. Chapter 5

**Death and Destiny**

* * *

><p>Detective Maysayoshi cocked an eyebrow, "You trying to tell me that you were flirting with a ghost that wasn't dead?"<p>

I shrugged. "We weren't flirting. And that's what he kept saying. He's not dead, he's not dead."

Detective Osamu furrowed his brow. "How could a ghost be alive?"

I smileed. "He never said he was alive, Detectives. Only that he wasn't _dead._"

The detectives shared a look, and Maysayoshi gestered that I should continue.

So I did.

"He wouldn't tell me exactly what happened the day he died, but I got little bits out of him every now and again...

* * *

><p>He was in that tree again. I wouldn't be able to get him out of there for days sometimes. Funnily enough, I could irritate him up there at a seconds notice. But to get him down; that was another story.<p>

"Inuyasha!" I called. "Inuyasha, come here!"

The ghost in question raised a dark eyebrow down at me from his branch, but stayed quiet.

"Please?"

With a sigh that exagerated my annoyance, Inuyasha swung his right leg over the other side of the branch and leaned back so he hung upside down, his face leveled with mine and much closer than I expected. "Why?"

"I," I paused, my eyes widened as they met his. "I've got a few questions. To help you."

"Haven't we gone through this already? I don't want help."

"But you need it. Dead people need to cross over."

"And living people need to learn to listen." Inuyasha growled. "I told ya; I aint dead."

I rolled my eyes, not willing to redisguss that age old arguement. Ghosts were dead. As far as I knew, that was it. Black and white. No shades of hue's in between.

"Fine. But I've still got questions. Will you please answer?"

"Depends." Inuyasha said, rolling off the tree and landing on his feet in front of her.

"On?"

"The question."

Figuring I'd take what I could get, I sat in front of the picket fence surrounding the tree and leaned against it, patting the seat next to me for Inuyasha.

"Alright, the first, most obvious question would be how you died-"

"Pass."

"But I'll skip that question," I glared at him. "Because I know you wont answer. The next question is about your childhood."

We were silent as I waited for him to pick up the conversation.

"What about it?"

Exasperated, I frowned. "Will you tell me about your childhood?"

The boy next to me seemed to think about it for a moment, and then he looked at me, completely serious. "Not much to tell."

I tilted my head. "Sure there is, common, what do you remember?"

"I was a boy. I had a mom and a red ball, and a brother who hated me. That's it."

"Alright. What was your brothers name?"

"Fluffy."

I sputtered. "Your mother named your brother Fluffy?"

"No. He was my half brother."

"So... then..." I paused, shook my head, and continued my incoherent sputter. "_His_ mother named him Fluffy?"

"No." Inuyasha smirked at me. "His name wasn't Fluffy. That's just what I called him."

"Why?"

"Have you ever heard the saying, 'Don't prod the sleeping bear'?"

"Sure."

He nodded. "You should leave dogs alone too."

* * *

><p><strong>Did You Know:<strong> that it has been a REALLY long time since I've updated? I'm truely sorry about that, by the way. Computer crashed. Time slipped. Writers block oh-cured.

**Did You Know:** that this chapter will be solely dedicated to bee1313 for her patients. Sorry for the wait, really. :D

**Did You Know:** That I've all of a sudden got this whole story COMPLETELY planed out? and that NEVER happens.


End file.
